Anchor Medical in RI to close. Impacting tens of thousands adults, children, for primary care

Late in the day on Friday word began going out that the entire Anchor Medical group will close as they filed a public notice of office closure – effective June 30th.

The 3 offices closing are in Warwick, Providence and Lincoln. Both Lincoln and Warwick also have pediatric practices in them.

Warwick, located at 400 Bald Hill Road, will close April 30th – with patients transferred to Lincoln until the final closure in June.

Providence, located at 180 Corliss Street, will continue until its closure in June.

Lincoln, adult and pediatric located at 1 Commerce Street, will close June 30th.

Letters are going out to all patients, which should be received by today or Monday. Patients are being asked to request their medical records at anchormedical.com/patient-resources.

In the letter, as reported by NBC10, Anchor Medical notes their reason for closure… “The decision to close our practices has been extremely difficult, particularly against the backdrop of a shortage of primary care physicians across the state. While our commitment to our patients remains strong, we just cannot continue to operate in this increasingly challenging healthcare environment. We have been unable to hire replacements for our physicians who have retired over the course of the last decade—while costs continue to rise, reimbursement rates make it extremely difficult to attract new physicians to our state,” Anchor Medical Associates said in the letter to patients.

The website lists 8 Retired Physicians – and 17 Active Physicians/PAs (3)

The concern over the pediatric practices is perhaps the most concerning, as finding a pediatrician prior to this time was nearly impossible – unless these pediatricians choose to stay and become part of existing practices.

It is well known that physicians and hospitals operating in Massachusetts and Connecticut get paid more than they do in Rhode Island, and Rhode Island’s hospital network is strained as it has never been.

Greenwich Bay Medicine (East Greenwich) & Blackstone Valley Medicine (Lincoln) say they will take on new patients – their website is: https://mymdri.com/gbm-home – notably their website is down at this time. Two Facebook pages: https://www.facebook.com/p/Greenwich-Bay-Medicine-61558071035981/ – and – https://www.facebook.com/people/Blackstone-Valley-Medicine/61558079646168/

Little more is known at this time. Will other practices be able to accept the influx? Will there be a creative solution? Will some other group come in to “buy” Anchor? Tens of thousands of Rhode Islanders will be impacted, including young children. No information about the closure is listed on the website.

From the RI Department of Health

Information for Anchor Medical Associates Patients

Anchor Medical Associates has announced it is closing effective June 30, 2025. Current patients of Anchor Medical Associates are encouraged to immediately:

1) Begin the search for a new primary care provider  

You may use the Department of Health’s online Find Primary Care tool to locate a physician, physician assistant, or nurse practitioner who can provide you with care.

Your insurance company website might also help you in finding a new doctor. 

Blue Cross Blue Shield 
UnitedHealthcare 
RIte Care 

Please note that any new provider will treat you as a new patient and will consult with you to determine appropriate care, including medications that may or may not be prescribed.  It may be helpful for you to be aware of the specifics of the medications you are currently taking at these new patient visits. 

Anchor Medical’s website has a patient medication list that you can print and fill out to bring with you to any new provider appointment.   

  2) Request copies of your family’s medical records before the practice closes. 

While medical records will be available after the June 30, 2025 closure date, it is best to obtain them beforehand.  Anchor Medical has a medical release form you can use. You should complete a separate release for each family member who is a patient of Anchor Medical.

This information may be updated. Here is the link to check back for more information: RIDOH

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Anchor Medical began under similar circumstances with another practice closure

In late 1999, the Rhode Island-based Harvard Pilgrim Health Care of New England filed for bankruptcy protection. The parent corporation divested from its Rhode Island interests, including a wholly-owned staff model practice, Anchor Medical Associates. This left the 18-physician medical group, which specializes in internal medicine and pediatrics and cares for more than 35,000 patients throughout Rhode Island and Southeastern Massachusetts, without an infrastructure or many options.

To continue serving their patients, Anchor Medical needed to secure new office space and get the practice up and running within 30 days, without disruption to their patients. The medical group became affiliated with Lifespan, Rhode Island’s largest health system, which agreed to loan all start-up costs. One of the biggest stumbling blocks was that Harvard Pilgrim’s bankruptcy process left Anchor Medical without access to its patient demographic information and billing files because the data was considered assets of the bankrupt corporation. This, and the fact that the Harvard Pilgrim collapse forced 100 percent of its patients to switch to new insurance companies, required Anchor Medical to re-register all of its patients – a daunting prospect for any organization. The staff of Anchor Medical Associates started from scratch and quickly determined that finding an information system to handle patient scheduling and registration, as well as billing and collections, was essential.

In searching for a solution, Anchor Medical Associates considered legacy practice management systems. But quickly they realized that this option could not sustain their business given the aggressive timeframe by which they had to be operational.

This promising offer came from athenahealth®, a Web-based practice management and revenue cycle optimization service founded in 1997. Because of its application service model, athenahealth could quickly “wire” Anchor Medical Associates – via the Internet – to its proprietary workflow automation technology.

This is developing news